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Full text available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/0300000033 The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) and Its Impact on Entrepreneurship Research Full text available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/0300000033 The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) and Its Impact on Entrepreneurship Research Niels Bosma Utrecht University School of Economics & Global Entrepreneurship Research Association The Netherlands [email protected] Boston { Delft Full text available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/0300000033 Foundations and Trends R in Entrepreneurship Published, sold and distributed by: now Publishers Inc. PO Box 1024 Hanover, MA 02339 USA Tel. +1-781-985-4510 www.nowpublishers.com [email protected] Outside North America: now Publishers Inc. PO Box 179 2600 AD Delft The Netherlands Tel. +31-6-51115274 The preferred citation for this publication is N. Bosma, The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) and Its Impact on Entrepreneurship Research, Foundations and Trends R in Entrepreneurship, vol 9, no 2, pp 143{248, 2013. ISBN: 978-1-60198-634-4 c 2013 N. Bosma All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the publishers. Photocopying. In the USA: This journal is registered at the Copyright Clearance Cen- ter, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use, or the internal or personal use of specific clients, is granted by now Publishers Inc for users registered with the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC). The `services' for users can be found on the internet at: www.copyright.com For those organizations that have been granted a photocopy license, a separate system of payment has been arranged. Authorization does not extend to other kinds of copy- ing, such as that for general distribution, for advertising or promotional purposes, for creating new collective works, or for resale. In the rest of the world: Permission to pho- tocopy must be obtained from the copyright owner. Please apply to now Publishers Inc., PO Box 1024, Hanover, MA 02339, USA; Tel. +1-781-871-0245; www.nowpublishers.com; [email protected] now Publishers Inc. has an exclusive license to publish this material worldwide. Permission to use this content must be obtained from the copyright license holder. Please apply to now Publishers, PO Box 179, 2600 AD Delft, The Netherlands, www.nowpublishers.com; e-mail: [email protected] Full text available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/0300000033 Foundations and Trends R in Entrepreneurship Volume 9 Issue 2, 2013 Editorial Board Editors-in-Chief: Zoltan J. Acs George Mason University [email protected] David B. Audretsch Indiana University [email protected] Editors Howard Aldrich, University of North Carolina Sharon Alvarez, Ohio State University Mark Casson, University of Reading Per Davidsson, Queensland University of Technology William B. Gartner, Clemson University Sharon Gifford, Rutgers University Magnus Henrekson, The Research Institute of Industrial Economics Michael A. Hitt, Texas A&M University Joshua Lerner, Harvard University Simon Parker, University of Durham Paul Reynolds, George Washington University Kelly G. Shaver, College of William and Mary David Storey, University of Warwick Patricia Thornton, Duke University Roy Thurik, Erasmus University Gregory Udell, Indiana University Sankaran Venkataraman, Batten Institute Paul Westhead, Nottingham University Business School Shaker Zahra, University of Minnesota Full text available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/0300000033 Editorial Scope Foundations and Trends R in Entrepreneurship will publish sur- vey and tutorial articles in the following topics: • Nascent and start-up • New business financing entrepreneurs { Business angels • Opportunity recognition { Bank financing, debt, and trade • New venture creation process credit • Business formation { Venture capital and private • Firm ownership equity capital • Market value and firm { Public equity and IPO's growth • Family-owned firms • Franchising • Management structure, governance • Managerial characteristics and and performance behavior of entrepreneurs • Corporate entrepreneurship • Strategic alliances and • High technology networks { Technology-based new firms • Government programs and public { High-tech clusters policy • Small business and economic • Gender and ethnicity growth Information for Librarians Foundations and Trends R in Entrepreneurship, 2013, Volume 9, 6 issues. ISSN paper version 1551-3114. ISSN online version 1551-3122. Also available as a combined paper and online subscription. Full text available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/0300000033 Foundations and Trends R in Entrepreneurship Vol. 9, No. 2 (2013) 143{248 c 2013 N. Bosma DOI: 10.1561/0300000033 The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) and Its Impact on Entrepreneurship Research Niels Bosma Utrecht University School of Economics & Global Entrepreneurship Research Association and Vlerick Business School, The Netherlands, [email protected] Abstract The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) is a project carried out by a research consortium dedicated to understanding the relationship between entrepreneurship and national economic development. Since 1999 GEM reports have been a key source of comparable data across a large variety of countries on attitudes toward entrepreneurship, start-up and established business activities, and aspirations of entrepreneurs for their businesses. The growing databases increasingly allow for in-depth academic research and this is mirrored by the rapidly increasing amount of GEM-based scientific publications in a wider range of academic jour- nals. At this point it is appropriate to provide an overview on these pub- lications, to summarize their main contributions, and to provide some directions for obtaining promising GEM-based academic contributions in the future. This publication provides a review of 89 GEM-based aca- demic publications in SSCI-listed journals since 2004, with the objec- tives to highlight the particular advantages of GEM data, their quality and usability, as well as their limitations. It also recommends a number Full text available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/0300000033 of ways in which the GEM project might evolve further and make more impact on entrepreneurship research, on entrepreneurship policy and practice, and ultimately on getting more grip on the complex relation between entrepreneurship and economic development. Keywords: Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, Entrepreneurial Activity, Economic Development. JEL Codes: E02, J24, L26, O11 Full text available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/0300000033 Contents 1 Introduction 1 2 GEM Framework and Methodology 5 2.1 Structure of the Questionnaires 13 3 Constructing an Overview of GEM-Based Academic Publications and an Initial Assessment 17 3.1 Waves of GEM-based Research 18 3.2 Revisiting GEM's Objectives and its Potential to Monitor Entrepreneurship 20 4 GEM-based Evidence: Factors Determining the Level of Entrepreneurial Activity 27 4.1 Determinants of Entrepreneurship | Micro Level Studies 27 4.2 Determinants of Entrepreneurship | Macro-Level Studies 39 4.3 Policies Leading to Appropriate Types and Levels of Entrepreneurial Activity 48 5 GEM-based Evidence: Linking Entrepreneurship to Economic Performance 53 ix Full text available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/0300000033 6 Overview and Implications 59 Acknowledgments 65 References 95 Full text available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/0300000033 1 Introduction It is common wisdom that venture creation is an essential element of dynamic economic systems and that individuals pursuing perceived business opportunities are required to maintain and develop economic dynamism. However, the process of venture creation can take on many forms. Historical, cultural, economic, sociologic, and demographic factors lead to vastly different characteristics of venture creation across the globe. Yet the process of venture creation and its variance across regions and nations has been understudied in economic theory, certainly up to the 1990s (Baumol, 1968; Barreto, 1989). In the 1990s, interest in the role of entrepreneurship in economic development increased and the lack of comparable international data on entrepreneurship and venture creation became recognized as a seri- ous issue (Reynolds et al., 1994). Government databases were not com- parable, and in many countries data on new venture creation was not systematically collected. This led to the establishment of a research initiative by a small group of academic scholars. 1 Full text available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/0300000033 2 Introduction The initiative was called the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) and as it grew, three main objectives were set for it: | To measure differences in the level of entrepreneurial activity between countries. | To uncover factors determining national levels of entrepreneurial activity. | To identify policies that may enhance national levels of entrepreneurial activity. Achieving the three GEM objectives would also help establish how entrepreneurship relates to economic growth and, in a longer-term per- spective, economic development. Entrepreneurship is believed to con- tribute to economic development because entrepreneurs create new businesses, and new businesses create jobs, intensify competition, and may even increase productivity through technological change. Some studies argue that